Claire Arnold
and Sozen Leimon co-founded Maxxim Consulting in 2001. Growing the business
from a start-up, Maxxim now have 25 permanent members of staff and major clients including The Royal Mail, De La
Rue, The Princes’ Trust and Oxford University, to name a few.

Last year Maxxim also became the first SME to be awarded a Government contract under the new GEM procurement process*.

Claire (pictured right) specialises
in organisational strategy, change management and leadership development with
significant experience in supporting leadership teams pre and post merger.
Having been involved in a number of significant transformation projects in both
public and private sectors, Claire has worked intensely with CEOs and their
boards to develop and communicate business vision and strategy.

Sozen (pictured left) has significant experience working at board level on strategic
change, organisation design, workforce improvement programmes and culture
change. She has led a number of large
restructuring and complex change programmes across Europe and North America
helping to achieve significant cost savings and up-skilling of management
capability. She has worked across the financial services, industrial and
defence sectors. She was formerly a partner in
Accenture’s Human Capital Practice.

We spoke to Claire and Sozen about how being set up on a 'date' by a mutual colleague has led to more than a decade of working together; how an out-of-work actor helped to grow their business; and the leadership lessons they learned the hard way.

TNW: How did you come up with
the idea for Maxxim and then arrive at the decision to turn your idea into a
reality?

CA: It was quite a combination of motives that led to us developing
Maxxim. I had previously been working at the
Whitehall & Industry Group (WIG), and whilst it wasn’t my own
business I was responsible for growing it, which was an experience I really
enjoyed. Following WIG, I decided to move on to AT
Kearney to get some experience in a big business environment. After a
few years a number of factors came together. I’d been feeling for a while that
I knew I could run my own business, and run it better than the big consultancy
corporations.

Then I received a phonecall from British Airways to tell me that
I had been promoted to a Gold air miles card. For me, this was the deciding
factor.

I had four children under the age of 10 at the time, and when I
received the call, I decided it was time to call it a day.

SL: I had been at Accenture for more than a decade, and despite being
promoted to partner I felt that the balance of the role was increasingly
focused on internal matters and self promotion rather than helping clients to
think through their strategic change challenges, which for me is more
energising. So, when the opportunity to leave came I was drawn to Claire, as
her style was so refreshingly different to working in a large consultancy.

TNW: How did you come to be
partners?

CA:

We were actually set up on a “date” by a common ex-colleague and
following this we decided to do one project together. Then the rest is history.

We quickly found that when we worked together we had really complementary
skills and experiences, and when we combined these it led to a skill-set which
was fairly unique in the consultancy marketplace. Funnily enough, the person
who set us up is now our third partner, but it took him over 10 years to
realise that this is the perfect place for him!

TNW: What makes your company
different from your competitors?

CA: We’ve combined intuition and data in
a way that is really effective for businesses and helps our clients to
prioritise where they most need to change. We help our clients make the
decisions they need to make and we actually help them to follow through on
these decisions.

SL: Our modest size gives us some
advantages over our larger rivals – it is easier for us to build closer client
relationships, specialise rather than try to be all things to all men and talk
straight.

TNW: When you built your
team, what are the key qualities you looked for to ensure the success of your
business?

CA: Building
a good team is really important to us and our clients. We
look for people who are really good at what they do and how they do it. Lots of
people say they’re good, but then aren’t actually able to deliver. For
us, what that means is that they need to be knowledgeable, decisive and good at
building personal and working relationships, which is actually quite a
complicated set of skills.

SL: It is also essential that our staff are confident. Confidence is
everything in our field, especially when dealing with change.

If you lose your
confidence you simply go through the process of change, but never actually have
the courage to make the hard decisions required.

TNW: Who were your first
customers and how hard was it to attract them?

CA: Our first clients were EDF and the Department for Work and
Pensions, as well as Royal Bank of Scotland and King’s College London
– we work across both the public and private sectors.

SL: These clients came to us through previous relationships that we had
with them as individuals. It didn’t matter that Maxxim didn’t have a track
record, as people knew our individual track records, and this helped us win
contracts.

TNW: If you could get on a
soap box and get something off your chest about the world of entrepreneurship,
something you’d like to change, what would it be?

CA:

Together, we would say companies need to have more creative
procurement - don’t keep buying the same services over and over. And we would
say it loudly!

SL: It’s all about taking a risk! In procurement we would like to see companies judging the
pitch based upon the actual answers provided rather than who they’ve worked
with before.

TNW: What has been your
biggest challenge throughout the history of your company, from planning to
funding and execution, and how could others learn from it?

CA&SL: Our biggest challenges have been keeping our focus, learning when
to say no and getting the right people. The challenges we’ve faced have all
been dependent upon the stage our business was in at that moment. In our first
year, our challenges were getting business, ensuring it was completed to an
exceptional standard and getting more work as a result of this. The next
challenge was to get business from people we didn’t know.

We actually worked
with an out of work actor who specialised in business development! He was
fantastic at making contacts and opening the door for us to speak to the right
people.

Following this, our challenges were all about hiring people and
building up a great team. We’re now in a great position and confident we can
face any challenges the future may bring.

TNW: Is there a moment in the
history of your company which you remember as the highlight so far?

CA: There hasn’t really been one specific moment which stands out to
me. Again, just as each year brought its own unique challenges, each year also
had its own highlights and its own unique flavour. This year has been all about
building the Maxxim brand, and having people know a little bit more about us
and what we do.

SL: Last year our focus was all about getting a great team together. We
grew the company by taking on some incredible new team members. Our focus this
year is all about making sure that our clients see the benefits and our team enjoy
what they do and are motivated to do a great job.

TNW: How would you describe
your leadership style today?

CA: It’s all about helping people think ahead and understand the choices
they will have to make and project what they need to own and how they will make
things come real to the people who work for them. Seeing ahead in a practical
way and feeling how others will feel is vital if you are going to get
organisations to change. And then being certain about what you stand for and
where the clear yes’s and no’s are is critical.

TNW: How has your leadership
style changed over the years, and why?

CA&SL: It hasn’t really. Consistency is incredibly important in
leadership, so we feel we’ve kept consistent in our leadership style over the
last ten years.

TNW: What is one lesson you
would like to pass on to other women leaders?

CA: Be ambitious! Trust in your
convictions and don’t be afraid of telling people things as you see them.

SL: Don’t be modest about your
achievements.

We’re always telling people to have the confidence to shout about
their achievements from the rooftops and tell the world just how good they are.
I think it’s a real shame that women don’t do that as much as men do.

TNW: What is one leadership
lesson you learned the hard way, but wish someone had told you at the
beginning?

SL:
For me, it was not to be too subtle, because people don’t always hear it.

CA: For me, it was to learn that when
you have given people information, they sometimes need some time to accept it.

I had a tendency to think people should just “get it” straight away and I
tended to get irritated if they took more than 30 seconds to understand or
accept what I was saying.

I think in leadership it’s essential to have the art of patience!

*In October 2010, Sir Philip Green carried out a report for the Cabinet Office on waste in government, and
found that £166billion was spent on public sector procurement on IT, travel and consultancy. As a result
of this report, the Cabinet Office announced its aspirations that a quarter of Government contracts should
go to small and medium businesses, in order to feed £41.5billion into SMEs.
The new GEM procurement process includes a series of measures to make it easier for small and
medium sized enterprises to do business with the Government. The new measures are designed to cut
away unnecessary bureaucracy and waste by streamlining the procurement process; improving the
transparency of public procurement opportunities; and requiring major suppliers to guarantee
subcontractors working on Government contracts are paid within 30 days.

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The NextWomen is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from
startups to companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and networks,
offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success. Join the community too! - See more at: http://www.thenextwomen.com/about-us/contributors#sthash.9GODHllB.dpuf

The NextWomen is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from
startups to companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and networks,
offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success. Join the community too! - See more at: http://www.thenextwomen.com/membership/sign-up#sthash.0ApND3BW.dpuf

The NextWomen is
a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We
build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from startups to
companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and
networks, offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success.